nding up, under trees of great beauty, thickset, and now for
long default of mastership, overbearing and encroaching in
their growth. A wild beauty they made, now becoming fast
disorderly and in places rough. The road wound about so much
that their progress was slow.

'Chickaree has had no guardian for a good while,' said Rollo,
as they went on. 'Look at that elm! and the ashes beyond it.
But don't cut too much, when you cut here; nor let Mr.
Falkirk.'

'He shall not cut a branch, and I love the thickets too well
to meddle with them. Unless they actually come in my face.'

'Then you do not love the thickets well enough. Come here,'
said he, drawing her gently to one side,--'stand a little this
way--do you see how that white oak is crowding upon those two
ashes? They are suffering already; and in another year it
would be in the way of that beautiful spruce fir. And the
white oak itself is not worth all that.'

'But if you cut it down there will be a great blank space. The
crowding is much prettier than that!'

'The blank space in two years' time will be filled again.'

'So soon?' she said doubtfully. Then with one of her half
laughs,--'You see I do not believe pruning and thinning out and
reducing to order agrees with everything; and naturally enough
my sympathies are the other way. I like to see the stiff
leaves and the soft leaves all mixed up together; they show
best so. Not standing off in open space--like Mr. Falkirk and
me.'

He took her up in the same tone; and for a little more of the
way there was a delicious bit of talk. Delicious, because Wych
Hazel had eyes and capacities; and her companion's eyes and
capacities were trained and accomplished. He was at home in
the subject; he brought forward his reading and his seeing for
her behoof; recommended Ruskin, and gave her some
disquisitions of his own that Ruskin need not have been
ashamed of. For those ten or fifteen minutes he was a
different man from what Wych Hazel had ever seen him. Then the
house came in sight, and a new subject claimed their
attention. For the mare, whether scenting her stable or
finding her spirits raised by getting nearer home, abandoned
her quiet manner of going, and after a little dancing and
pulling her bridle, testified her disapprobation of all sorts
of restraint by flinging her heels into the air, and being
obliged to follow her leader, she repeated the amusement
continuously.

'Do your drawing-room windows look on the